Live events include among others performances such as music, theater, dance, opera, etc. as well as other types of events such as sports, political gatherings, festivals, religious ceremonies, TV shows, games etc. The global financial impact of such events is massive and event organizers are interested in maximizing their financial revenues by creating a great user-experience for the event audience. The term audience here refers to not only those who are physically present in live events but also everyone who experiences live events via any medium, for example via broadcasting, recording, virtual reality reproduction, etc. Live events can be experienced either in real time or anytime after the actual time of the event. In all said cases, a very important aspect of the overall live events' user-experience is the auditory experience of the audience. Therefore, there's a need for new methods and systems that improve the auditory experience of live events.
In an indoor or outdoor live event, no matter how small or large, the main Public Address (PA) system is typically setup and tuned in an empty venue, e.g. without an audience present. Typically dedicated engineers take care to ensure homogeneous coverage of all audience positions in terms of sound pressure, loudness, frequency response or any other parameter. Such setup and tuning ensures high-quality auditory experience for the audience. However, this setup and tuning of the PA system is time-consuming and requires expensive equipment and highly-skilled professionals. Therefore in many live events, careful setup and tuning of the PA system is not performed and as a result the auditory performance can be bad or mediocre. Furthermore, even in cases where a careful setup and tuning of the PA system is performed, there's no way to achieve a perfect result since: (a) the behavior of the PA system will change over time according to environmental conditions (temperature, humidity, etc.) and (b) the appearance of the audience alters significantly the acoustic characteristics, mainly in indoor venues. In addition, the success of the setup and tuning of a PA system is limited by another fact: it's extremely difficult to perform measurements in all audience positions especially in larger venues. Therefore, only indicative measurements or coarse simulations are typically performed, resulting in a sub-optimal result for several venue positions. Therefore there's a need for methods and systems that perform continuous measurements in several venue positions at the time of live events.
Although live events are sometimes equipped with adequate professional equipment for reinforcing, recording and broadcasting, there are often limitations on the equipment quantity and quality, especially when the production budget is low. In addition even for expensive productions, there can be always limitations on the equipment placement. For example, a live sound engineer of a concert cannot place microphones in between the concert crowd. On the other hand, modern audience members carry with them portable devices including but not limited to smartphones, tablets, video cameras and portable recorders. These devices typically have sensors such as microphones and cameras, as well as significant processing power and they can transmit data wirelessly. Therefore, there is a need to harness the computing power and/or exploit the sensors of such devices in order to enhance among others the quality and quantity of the live event reinforcement, recording and broadcasting. Another factor that enhances the user-experience of live events is the user-engagement at the time of the event or later on. During each live event, the event audience can be engaged by actively participating in it. By giving said option to the live event audience, the event organizers can create immersive experiences for the users, increase the user-satisfaction and as a result transform the event audience from one-time users to loyal fans. Since live event audience already carries with them their portable devices, it might also make sense to allow them to use said devices in order to interact with or participate in the event. Therefore there is a need for new methods and systems that give the event audience the option to participate actively in live events by using their portable devices.